1. Technical Field
The present disclosure pertains to the field of printing and in particular, to systems and methods for the processing style data for spreadsheets described using markup languages.
2. Description of Related Art
Document processing software allows users to view, edit, process, store, and print various types of documents conveniently. Document content for printing can be described using a variety of ways, including through the use of markup languages such as Office Open eXtensible Markup Language (“OOXML”), or SpreadsheetML (“SML”) which is based on XML and is typically used with spreadsheets. Markup languages permit the textual annotation of a document. Descriptive markup languages can be used to specify structural relationships between parts of the document but typically do not provide any instructions on how the document is to be rendered or presented to end users. On the other hand, procedural and presentational markup languages may include instructions that detail how the document content is to be rendered.
When a document described using a descriptive markup language is rendered, the structural relationships between document parts can complicate the process of determining the final renderable content for printing. In the case of documents such as spreadsheets, where the values of a spreadsheet cell may depend on a multiplicity of other cells, the complexity can be increased manifold. Spreadsheet elements such as cells, tables and their associated attributes are often represented programmatically as objects. Therefore, when spreadsheets specified in a markup language (such as OOXML) are processed for printing, a multiplicity of spreadsheet objects may be loaded into memory and pointers to one or more objects (which reflect structural relationships between document parts) may be traversed multiple times in order to determine the appearance of rendered objects. For example, for SML and various other OOXML descriptions, all data is typically loaded into memory before pagination determinations are made and rendering can start.
The loading of multiple objects into memory and the repeated pointer traversals during processing can contribute to the use of additional memory resources and other processing inefficiencies. For example, the use of additional memory can increase the cost of printers, while repeated pointer traversals during processing can contribute to lower throughput. In the context of spreadsheets, the processing of style-data associated with spreadsheet objects, such as spreadsheet cells and tables, can contribute significantly to memory resource use and processing inefficiencies. Thus, there is a need for systems and methods that permit the efficient processing and printing of style data associated with spreadsheet objects while using memory resources in a more optimal manner.